


shizen

by pudgypanda



Series: satoru [8]
Category: Boruto: Naruto Next Generations, Naruto
Genre: Atonement - Freeform, Canon Compliant, Canon Fix-It, F/M, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Trauma, bc let's be real that's what this whole series is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-26
Updated: 2019-09-26
Packaged: 2020-10-28 17:36:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20782469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pudgypanda/pseuds/pudgypanda
Summary: shizen:without pretense__At night, Sakura's tight, controlled grasp she has over herself slips. At night, Sakura lives and re-lives, and the only person around to help is the same as the one at the center of all her worst nightmares.Sometimes, medics need healing too.





	shizen

It starts as a faint murmuring, so Sasuke does not even register the problem until it seems to explode upon him. He is simply doing a last perimeter scan, rechecking the seals that will wake them in the event of intruders, before he deactivates his Sharingan to call it a night. Only when he is already halfway into the bedroll does his Rinnegan registers a growing chakra disturbance next to him, where Sakura lies sleeping as of only several minutes ago.

He pauses, not sure what to make of it at first. Sasuke has learned after ten months - nearly a year, he notes - of traveling as a pair that Sakura occasionally utters things in her sleep. Sometimes it is nothing but pure nonsensical gibberish (which he struggles not to find endearing) and at other times, there are snippets of names and places. This instance, however, feels different somehow - there is something sinister about the way her chakra signature churns.

As Sasuke shifts closer to her, her brow furrows and she begins to tremble in earnest, spiking his alarm instantaneously. He knows some basic medical jutsu, but he doubts he could do anything to help if she is seriously ill. There is not even decent cover for at least a hundred kilometers, nothing but flat, arid Kaze country, and it would be further yet to get her real help.

But before he can continue to frantically think up more options, Sakura’s voice cuts through the darkness. She is yelling, and after a few moments, he finally hears something decipherable.

“Sasuke-kun!”

He prickles with dread at the sound of his name. At least it _is_ still dream-talking and not truly a sudden infection or toxin, he thinks, but this is more violent than he has ever seen her night terrors. She is thrashing now, and he can see that she is beginning to gasp for air.

“Naruto-kun! You have t-” Sakura is heaving with the effort, gagging on her own words now, and Sasuke rushes in to try and sit her upright, not wanting her to choke. But as he grabs her flailing arms to pull her up, she screams.

“Sasuke-kun, please- don’t!”

Her eyes snap open, but he can tell she is still halfway asleep. There is one awful moment in which he instantly sees in her gaze that she has no conception of who he is - or at least, who he is now. She recognizes Sasuke, but in response to his face, there is only a mixture of fear and pain and heartbreak that slice through him like a kunai between the ribs. And out here, all alone in the desert, he is the only other person for miles, which means there is nobody that can hold her or comfort her.

Because he is the demon rattling her dreams.

Sasuke recoils back as Sakura wails in pure terror, and she falls back to the bedroll, eyes shut. Briefly, he contemplates inducing a genjutsu that would calm her, but the thought of using his dōjutsu, the same one that has caused her such torment, on her without her explicit approval makes his stomach turn; it feels like a violation somehow even if done for her benefit. So he relies upon what he excels in, and allows his training to take over. He quickly verifies that there is nothing else alive in the nearest kilometer around, and then immediately flees before Sakura can continue to spiral further.

Mangekyō activated, Sasuke stands out of range of normal human sight, does his best to cloak his presence, and watches Sakura’s chakra signature from the other side of a large dune to make sure she stays safe. He watches as the perturbations in her chakra even out, albeit not returning to her normal tone or color, and suffers the rising tide self-loathing as he fights down dry retching.

Time warps around him as Sasuke waits for Sakura to come to her senses, and he has no idea how long he sits, fists clenched and jaw clenched, under the shadow of the Land of Wind’s shifting sands. He slowly lets down his chakra cloaking a little bit at a time, just to let Sakura know that he is still there as she becomes lucid enough to understand. Only when he sees that she is moving fully of her own volition does he feel confident enough to return to her.

To his selfish relief, she reaches for him the instant he reappears, but still, he slows down as he gets near the bedroll, kneeling before her. She is sitting now, knees tucked into her chest, still hiccuping with lingering panic as tears run down over her lips, trembling on them as she huffs open-mouthed. She grasps at the edges of his cloak, pulling him towards her.

“Sorry, Sasuke-kun, I’m so sorry, I-”

“Stop it,” he cuts in. He tries his best to keep his voice level and calm, knowing that his own turmoil will only escalate the situation, but his self-directed frustration seeps through nonetheless. He can only hope she can see through the harshness and know it is not meant for her. “You have absolutely nothing to be sorry about.”

She reaches for his face, and only when she touches the moisture there does he realize he, too, has been crying. “Did I hit you? Please tell me I didn’t hit you,” she pleads.

“_Stop it!_” he snarls, finally snapping. He snatches her hand off his face with his own. “This isn’t about me, Sakura, _I’m not the one we’re worrying about right now!_”

The edge in his voice finally seems to startle her enough to temporarily dislodge her stubbornly-ever present caretaking drive - one she has honed day after day since she was just a child. Sasuke watches her expression change from one of blank shock to one of pure exhaustion. He shifts to her side to catch her as she slumps sideways, cradling her back with his one arm. She shuts her eyes, still panting lightly, and leans into his chest.

“I’m the one who’s sorry,” Sasuke exhales across the top of her head, voice cracking, lips pressing against her hair as if he wishes they alone could sap away what he has done to her. “I’m so, so sorry.”

"I know,” she murmurs, breath blowing across his neck. "I know you are.”

“Sakura,” he says hoarsely. He pulls back, turns his face to messily wipe the stray tears from his own cheeks with his stump, and wills himself to look into her eyes. “Tell me what I can I do for you. What I should do for you.”

_The next time that this happens _hangs in the air after he speaks - unspoken but horribly loud nonetheless.

Sakura shakes her head. “I’ve always just…” she sighs, punctuated by a hiccup, and tries again. “I’m not used to having someone here when this happens. I’m not used to having _you_ here when this happens.”

The simultaneous guilt of causing these terrors, worsening them, and being unable to do anything to alleviate them rolls together and punches Sasuke’s breath right out of his chest.

“Sasuke-kun,” she says softly, laboriously. He looks at her, and sees that familiar spark of ingenuity in her eyes, even through the numbness he knows she must be battling in the wake of her nightmare. “Do you think…you could induce a genjutsu on me?” she asks in a whisper.

Sasuke nearly huffs out a laugh because _of course they are on the same page, _but he twists his mouth ruefully. “I would have to look you in the eyes. With the Mangekyō activated. And if you’re already distressed, looking at my Sharingan…” He falls silent, unsure of how to phrase his concern.

But Sakura wraps her arms around his waist, insistent. “I wonder - I’ve actually been working on something for the survivors of the war, and maybe we can use it to work around my sensitivity to the sight of your Mangekyō.” Sasuke sits up a bit straighter, intent on hearing her out. “It doesn’t drain you much to have it activated, right?”

“Not since…Itachi-nii…”

As if she knows how much those words take out of him, Sakura doesn’t wait for him to finish when he trails off. “Then…can you leave it activated sometimes when we’re not in combat? Especially when we lie down at night - just for a few moments before we fall asleep. I just need to look at them for a bit, get used to their glowing so near my face in the dark.”

He swallows. This would be a reversal from how much he has tried to keep his dōjutsu inactive for her sake. “Are you sure? I know it’s not easy for yo-”

“I’m sure.” She closes her eyes in determination. “If I’d wanted easy, Sasuke, I wouldn’t have asked Tsunade to teach me, I wouldn’t have become a med-nin, I wouldn’t have come out here with you.” She looks up at him, quiet but resolved.

_I wouldn’t be with you_, is what Sasuke hears.

Her hand comes back to his cheek. “But I wanted this, Sasuke-kun. And I still do.”

He is all out of words, so he lowers his head to kiss her gently, first her lips, and then slowly but deliberately, her nose, the spot between her eyebrows just under her seal, her temple. Reluctantly, he loosens his hold on her so he can set her back on the bedroll, and then he gets up to fetch her the water stashed in their packs. She takes it from him gratefully, and he settles in behind her, bracketing her with his legs, skimming a hand over her back and feeling the tension still humming beneath her skin all the way up into her neck. Working his hand underneath the hem of her shirt, he kneads upward as far as he can, trying to at least undo this physical remnant of his curse on her body. A soft sigh of relief escapes Sakura. She sits up to just remove her shirt entirely before leaning back into his touch, pulling the bedroll cover up to keep the heat in against her exposed chest. Her blatant trust in him in spite of everything warms him all the way to his toes in spite of the chill of the desert night, and he drops a chaste kiss to the nape of her neck.

They are both still reluctant to lie down to attempt sleep again so soon, and so Sasuke sits with Sakura cradled against his chest, slowly working his hands, such lethal weapons, gently across the expanse of Sakura’s muscled back and arms. He charts each little freckle, each scar, feeling her nuzzle back against him.

A thought comes to his mind, and his fingers pause on her skin. “The genjutsu. What do you want to see?”

Sakura shifts to twist her head around, looking up at him questioningly.

“If it’s consistent each time, you’ll know it’s me. Every time you see it. So what do you want to see?”

A small smile tugs at the corner of Sakura’s mouth. “Show me the cave over the coast in Yugakure,” she says, and suddenly he can barely breathe. The vividness of his memory crashes into him.

_The sea breeze whistles at Sasuke’s bare back as the first rays of dawn seep in through the mouth of the cave. He can still smell the previous night’s storm and the crackle of electricity in the air suggests another is not far off. Stirring slightly, he awakens to find Sakura still asleep, turned to face him, head cushioned on what remains of his left arm. Her mouth is just slightly open, but her face is more at ease than he can ever remember it looking even when they were kids. In theory, they should take advantage of the brief improvement in the weather to hunt down some more food and rekindle the fire, but Sasuke cannot bring himself to rouse her. She is beautiful, hair fluttering imperceptibly in the slight amount of wind that reaches her, and he leans forward impulsively to kiss her forehead._

Sasuke is not really sure that he knows how it happened, but he realizes that he is staring directly into Sakura’s eyes as he recalls all of this, Mangekyō active. But she is staring back, and he watches as she relaxes, eyes sliding shut as the genjutsu takes hold. Slightly horrified at having inadvertently cast it, Sasuke slowly brings the genjutsu to a close, Mangekyō deactivating. He watches cautiously as Sakura gradually opens her eyes again, eyelids heavy, but with a contented expression across her face.

She lifts a tired hand up towards his face, tracing down his hairline. “Perfect,” she whispers, finger gently tapping his forehead.

“Thank you, Sasuke-kun.”

**Author's Note:**

> HeyyYyyyYYYYyyyyyYYyy friends! I am alive. Woo. 
> 
> I wrote this from a place of feeling like true apology doesn't just come in the form of words - although proper validation of what was done wrong is critical - but more in the form of tangible efforts to fix the damage done. I wanted to give Sasuke a chance to do this for Sakura while also exploring that the kind of comfort Sakura provides in _mono no aware_ (as well as _hansei,_ I suppose) doesn't apply well in the inverse direction because of the traumatic associations Sakura has when it comes to Sasuke. In _hansei,_ Sasuke reflects on the need to make new memories with Sakura to help her heal - to give her a better him, to counter all the past versions that had inflicted hurt after hurt on her. So here, he gets his opportunity, and makes sure not to squander it. It's also long past overdue for Sakura to reciprocate his lil love pokes sooooooooooooooo I saw MY opportunity and I ran like hell with it.
> 
> In some ways, this is also just an elaborate callout post @myself, a person in a healthcare profession who struggles to set emotional boundaries and derives an unhealthy amount of my self-esteem from being able to look after others. (One of my lovely therapists from before my move called it a caretaker complex.) In the veterinary world, that's really not entirely unique, but I also felt like it's a problem that's applicable to Sakura, and fits well within her character. Lord knows I <s>sometimes</s> often need loved ones (or my therapist) to shake me by the shoulders and yell that we gotta focus on me!!
> 
> I have read all of your lovely comments and fully intend to respond to each - I just haven't had the time yet! And this work has been written for months now - I just had to do a final proofread, highkey because I have to rewrite Sasuke's lines of dialogue so many times to try and get his voice right. (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻ So since I've taken my finals and finished my block this week (vet school runs on a weird schedule), I figured I'd throw this up really quick <s>instead of packing for this conference I'm leaving for in a few hours</s>.
> 
> Things are gradually improving in my life, but the battle with chronic illness is ever ongoing, as I'm sure too many of you are familiar with. As always, all of your love and support takes my goddamn breath away, and I couldn't be more grateful. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
> 
> Love,  
pudge


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